Madras HC reserves orders on PIL against Karunanidhi statue in Tiruvannamalai

Chennai, June 1:  The Madras High Court on Wednesday reserved its order on a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) against installing a statue of late former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister late M. Karunanidhi in the state's Tiruvannamalai.

The court deferred the order after it was informed that the statue would be unveiled on June 3, the birth anniversary of the late Chief Minister.

A division bench of Justices Mohammed Shaffiq and M.S. Ramesh took the decision after E.V. Kumaran of Jeeva Educational Trust filed an application to vacate an interim injunction granted by the court on May 19 restraining the trust from installing the statue. E.V. Kumaran is the son of state PWD minister and DMK leader, E.V. Velu.

Senior counsel S. Prabhakaran, representing the trust, informed the court that no public land was encroached on for constructing the statute and that it was on private land owned by the trust.

He also sought an urgent hearing on the matter as the birth anniversary of the late Chief Minister was on June 3.

Additional Advocate General, J. Ravindran representing the official respondents questioned the PIL filed by a person named Karthik, who was a scrap dealer in Chennai, wondering how he, as a Chennai resident, was in the know of the ground situation at Tiruvannamalai.

He also stated that according to law, the litigant filing the PIL will have to disclose the specific sources from which he or she had collected information with respect to the allegations levelled, noting that in this PIL, the petitioner had made a general statement that he had made inquiries from locals.

The court asked the litigant's counsel as to how his client was in the know of things in Tiruvannamalai and also wanted to know why a PIL was filed against installing a statue at a private party's land. As counsel replied that the 'patta' (land rights) document were fabricated, the court said that the PIL should have been against the validity of the 'patta' and not against the installation of the statue.